L. Paxon: “Mr. Chairman, disclosure is the key to real reform. We have put forth many amendments to do precisely that. Mine this…”

“Mr. Chairman, disclosure is the key to real reform. We have put forth many amendments to do precisely that. Mine this evening focuses on the largest player in American politics, the organized labor bosses. Together in the last cycle they controlled over $300 million spent on American politics according to Rutgers University. According to a former top official of the Teamsters Union, in fact, that number was over $400 million. Yet much of the information regarding their expenditure, where it comes from and how it is expended, goes undisclosed. Currently the Department of Labor requires some limited reporting but it is spotty, it is disorganized, no two unions in fact report the same information in the same way. It is done purposefully, it is done so that the American voter and taxpayer and citizen cannot know how much they are spending. My amendment does three things simply. First, it amends the LM-2 form submitted by the unions currently with the Department of Labor. Two, it requires functional accounting for uniform categories of spending for the previous year which is not now required. And, number three, of course, it requires the posting on the Internet of all this information. Mr. Chairman, this is logical. We have a player spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Put it on the Internet. Let the American people see what is being spent, how it is being raised. That is all we are asking. It is called disclosure.”